Dr Jonathan Huntley

About me:

Dr Jonathan Huntley is a Wellcome Clinical Career Development Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Exeter. His primary research work translates insights and biomarkers from cognitive and consciousness science to understand the awareness and lived experience of people with dementia, particularly in the advanced stages. He studied neuroscience and medicine at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London; trained in general medicine, neurology and completed higher specialist training in old age and liaison psychiatry in 2017. During clinical training he undertook an MRC funded PhD at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience examining adaptive working memory training in Alzheimer’s Disease. In 2019 he was awarded a 4 year Wellcome fellowship to investigate awareness in Alzheimer’s disease, based at UCL. The study uses a combination of fMRI, TMS-EEG, ERP and neuropsychological measures to identify markers of awareness in people with mild, moderate and advanced Alzheimer’s disease. He also has a wide range of additional research interests and expertise spanning dementia prevention, non-pharmacological interventions and clinical trials.

ASSESSING AWARENESS IN DEMENTIA

My primary interest is in understanding how dementia affects a person’s awareness of themselves and the world around them. This has crucial implications for their care and is of central importance to people with dementia and their families. This work has four broad areas:

1. THEORETICAL MODELS: I'm interested in developing theoretical models to understand awareness in dementia, with specific emphasis on how different facets of awareness are affected with disease progression, and how this is central to person-centered care. (Huntley et al 2021, Mograbi et al 2021, Hallam et al 2020, O'Shaughnessy et al 2020; Collaborators D Mograbi UC-Rio, L Clare University of Exeter, S Fleming UCL). I am also developing models of metacognition in functional cognitive disorder and Parkinson’s disease (Bhome et al 2022, Bhome et al 2019).
2. TRANSLATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE: I am interested in using fMRI, TMS and EEG biomarkers used to assess consciousness in other clinical groups to understand the level and contents of awareness in people with dementia. These biomarkers can enable the subjective lived experience of people with moderate and severe dementia to be objectively measured. I am actively working with a growing network of international collaborators from cognitive neuroscience, consciousness and computer science (A Owen UWO Canada, D Bor and P Mediano University of Cambridge, L Naci Trinity College Dublin).(Huntley et al 2022, Huntley et al 2021).
3. IMPROVING PERSON-CENTRED CARE: Insights from the above theoretical and biomarker streams are being translated to improve the assessment of awareness in real world settings, such as care homes. The aim is to use these markers to help individually tailor interventions and activities to promote evidence based, meaningful person-centred care for people with advanced dementia. Work in care homes is underway using portable EEG and physiological markers.
4. PATIENT AND PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT: I am passionate about the importance of PPI work with people with dementia, current and past carers. This has led to a number of creative outputs including a short documentary film, and a co-produced fictional screenplay exploring what it is like to have dementia (funded by a UCL Knowledge Exchange Programme Grant (£14840) in collaboration with dementia charities (AS, ARUK) and the WHO).

DEMENTIA PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

• I am a co-author of The Lancet International Commission on Dementia Prevention and Care, highlighting modifiable risk factors for dementia. (Livingston, Huntley et al 2020, Livingston et al 2017).

• I am interested in modifiable risk factors for dementia including cognitive training (Zhang, Huntley 2019, Huntley et al 2017), exercise (Pisani et al 2021), depression and anxiety (Gimson et al 2018, Eraydin et al 2018), and traumatic brain injury (Graham et al 2022).
• I am a co-investigator on the ESRC-NIHR ‘APPLE-Tree’ dementia prevention programme (£3986940), a multimodal intervention to enable targeted behavior changes in people at high risk of dementia. I am a member of the co-production group and involved in developing cognitive training tools. (Cooper et al 2021,2019, Poppe et al 2020)

CLINICAL ROLE

• I am an Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at the Camden Memory Service, Peckwater Centre. I assess and manage people with dementia and provide consultant input to the Multidisciplinary team. I am also involved with clinical audit, quality improvement projects and interface with research.
• I hold Section 12(2) and Approved Clinician status.

• PGCert: Clinical Education, King's College London (2018)
• PhD: Old Age Psychiatry, King's College London (2014)
• AKC: Theology and Ethics, King's College London (2012)
• MRCPsych: Royal College of Psychiatrists (2007)
• MRCP: Royal College of Physicians (2004)
• MBBS: Medicine and Surgery, Imperial College London (2001)
• MA (Hons): Neuroscience, University of Cambridge (1998)